Eisernes Kreuz
by AsanoShinsei
Summary: After the success of the 1918 Spring Offensive, and the fall of Paris, Germany, depleted of manpower drafts 500,000 women to replace their fallen male counterparts. Elsa Frost, a young Lieutenant of noble background experiences the horrors of modern war, and begins to fall down a hopeless spiral of love for a young nurse with hair the color of strawberries. ELSANNA Not Related.
1. Christmas

_Dear Mother_

 _The cold finally seems to really be setting in for this year. Despite the low temperatures and the constant precipitation not a single drop of snow has fallen since I left Berlin earlier this month. The men are tired, depressed, exhausted, yet not a single soul complains. More and more men die every day, yet they no longer seem phased. Even the other women, have long since set aside their grievances in turn for anger. Anger at the so-called 'dough-boys' from the New World. The Americans are strong, I have no doubt there is not a single soul along the entirety of the Michael line that does not believe so, even if they are inexperienced. In a pleasant turn of events it would appear that a temporary ceasefire has been called across the lines to celebrate Christmas, the first time this has been done since 1914._

 _Do you remember that year? It seems so long ago now, I remember how exited I was when Father got Olaf and I scarves from that Ottoman trader, they were so beautiful. In fact I am wearing that scarf right now as I write this, luckily, safe behind the lines for now. It seems that the Generals are still weary of us "Heidi's" as the men have taken to calling us. They fail to take us seriously, and whilst I do have a heavy feeling in my heart at the notion of actually having to storm the enemy lines, I would do it without hesitation simply to rid myself and the others of the ridicule and jokes poking at us. From my understanding despite the temporary truce lasting until the new year, we do not expect the Dough-boys to follow through with their promise, and as such we will not be leaving the trenches the entire time, but I'm not nervous about that. For two weeks now we have been stationed here at the front with not a single mention of going over the top._

 _I pray to God Almighty that I will be spared the horrors of this war._

 _Much Love,_

 _Your Loving daughter_

 _Lieutenant Elsa Frost, 246th Infantry, "Brunhilde"_

 _December 25th 1918_

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 **AN:** Hello, Hello! Thank you for checking out this very brief introduction to what I hope, will be a new series. World War One has been quite fascinating to me as of late and as far as I know there is not another fic in this section about the Great War, so I hope that I can perhaps spark some interest in history amongst the community, and if not, oh well. Thanks again for reading! R/R- chiZu


	2. Hell on Earth

**EISERNES KREUZ**

 **Hölle auf Erden**

 **AN: It seems like a few of you liked the premise of this story. Well I just hope that I don't disappoint!**

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 _Dear Mother_

 _Over the past nights, I have found sleep a concept I simply cannot grasp. No matter how I try, tea, cigarettes, even some medicine from the Quartermaster. I am glad Kaiser Wilhelm made the call when he did and not before the Surrender. I have heard some of the other men talking about the luxuries that we seem to be experiencing. Though I could hardly consider sleeping in rat infested, mud swamped, freezing cold rifts dug in the dirt "luxurious.". I do believe that my inability to sleep may have stemmed from my own fears about what I may have gotten myself into. The part of the line I have been stationed on has not been subject to the British guns, but from the message runners I have heard further to the west Tommy has been relentless. Sector 5 has been under artillery strikes for nearly two days now. Strange that we have not seen a single shot fired our way, save for a shoulder injury from a sniper across no-mans-land. He was swiftly dealt with by one of our own. I believe it was Sergeant Hans Inseln, a fellow officer from my own group. It was fascinating scene to witness. Sergeant Inseln diving into cover behind a log just as the sharpshooter fired over his head. He took off his helmet and placed it on top of the log with just the front plate showing as a sort of a trap, which surprisingly the enemy rifleman took the bait firing a shot straight into the steel helmet. Sergeant Inseln swiftly propped himself up and fired a single shot with his rifle, the bullet flying through the air leaving a misty trail along the path of the shot and I could hear the sound of the bullet punching through the rounded steel helmet of the Englishman and shortly followed by a short yelp of pain as the bullet pierced his helmet and into his head. Forgive me mother. I seem to have gotten a little too graphic. To return to the point I brushed on at the beginning of my letter, I am afraid. I realize that now. I fear I may not be able to write you for some time, but I will try my best._

 _I wish you the best. Hopefully this war will finally come to an end before the end of this new year._

 _Your loving daughter_

 _Lieutenant Elsa Frost, 246th Infantry, "Brunhilde"_

 _January 1st 1919, Happy New Year_

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Elsa wiped off the tip of her fountain pen on a small towel she had placed upon the desk she was borrowing inside the makeshift mailing center just behind the lines where she had been stationed and blew on the ink upon the page to help it dry faster. She looked up from the desk out at the trenches in front of her, the snow-covered landscape covered in craters and barbed wire. At first it surprised Elsa how quickly the infrastructures and craters gathered but now she had grown used to the constantly expanding labyrinth of trenches. It really was incredible, even if the landscape seemed reminiscent of what one would see were they to look up at the moon. The woman let out a sigh of exhaustion and fixed her cap atop her head, her platinum blonde hair tied in a fancy braid earning glances from the other men inside of the post. She dabbed a finger onto the ink on her parchment testing if it were dry, she stood up from the chair and picked up her letter off the table and walked over to another desk which had a wax stamp sitting on it. She folded the letter and stuffed it into an envelope before setting it down upon the table dripping a small puddle of melted wax from a red candle onto the sealing point of the envelope, stamping the stamp down onto the puddle forming the German Eagle. After writing down her mothers name and address Elsa stuck the letter in a box filled with dozens of other letters heading to the soldiers family members. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette tin popping the lid off and pulling one of the long thin tobacco sticks from the tin. "Does anyone have a match?" Elsa turned around to see every man in the tent turned facing her with an estranged look upon their faces. She sighed. "A match?" She repeated looking around the room and finally someone entered from outside and tapped Elsa on the shoulder. Elsa spun around to face the person who had disturbed her and found she was met with the chest of someone much taller than her.

"Here." He said, his voice sounded young, but pleasant enough. She looked up at him and took the matches.

"Ah...thank you." Elsa spoke softly and bowed her head politely. She opened the small tin case and pulled out one of the matches striking it on the side before holding her cigarette to the soft flame of the match as she attempted to light it despite the subfreezing temperature.

The tall man nodded. "Sure. Don't mention it."

Elsa chuckled and took a long drag off of her cigarette and handed the man the box back. "I needed that." She said with a smirk. "What's your name Corporal?" Asked him noting his rank badge attached to his collar.

The tall man ran his fingers through his shaggy, unnaturally long, blonde hair. "Wiedmann, Kristoff Wiedmann, from East Prussia." He said to her with a chuckle. "And You're Lieutenant Frost correct?" He asked taking a cigarette of his own out of his pocket and another matchbox with which he lit the cigarette. "Don't worry about the matches, I've got a few of em' and I hardly smoke." He said in his thick accent, it was obvious that he was from far away, the way he talked reminded her more of the Russians she'd met as a small child travelling to the Kingdom, of course her common sense prevented her from making the comparison.

Elsa stepped out of the tent after buttoning her long grey-green woolen trench coat that reached down to her ankles. The formerly standard red trim that came on previous uniforms was in place on her coat suggestion its creation before the supplies got terribly tight. She fastened her belt around her waist with her pistol holster hanging against her hip. Kristoff followed her out puffing on his own cigarette as he did so.

"So did you sign up or were you drafted?" Kristoff asked her catching up with the Lieutenant easily, due to his much longer legs.

Elsa raised an eyebrow at the question. "I was selected. I didn't particularly want to fight, but I had an education, so they agreed to put me in charge of something. That assignment has yet to come in. So I'm quite happy that those bloody _Island Apes_ haven't poked those dinner plates over the trenches, save for that one that Sergeant Inseln got a couple days ago." She said with a soft morbid chuckle.

Kristoff nodded in understanding. "I was a conscript at first, but when my contract ran out I joined up officially, I'm on my second year of professional service. "

Elsa gave a gesture of confusion at his words. "You survived this hell and came back for more?" She asked. "You're braver than I thought." She said and headed back into the trench to head back to her post, she was only on break for half an hour after all, and a quick glance at her pocket watch confirmed that she was running later than she thought.

Kristoff stopped in his tracks and looked around. "So this is where you're at huh?"

Elsa turned to face him once more. "Unfortunately it is. Though like I said. Haven't seen much action here." She chuckled.

Kristoff nodded. "Well lucky you." He said with a smirk and pulled something out of his pocket. Kristoff reached out his leather gloved hand to Elsa with something orange clenched in his fist, the female soldier cocked her head to the side but extended her arm as well to receive whatever it was he was offering, he dropped the object into her hand, which had revealed itself to be a long ripe carrot, giving Elsa a furrowed brow and a confused expression.

"Um...thank you?" She spoke as if she were saying a question, not entirely sure what she should make of the vegetable that her comrade had handed her, thankfully Kristoff was quick to explain.

"A token of a newfound friendship." The smile that he had on his face could only be described as shit-eating. "Enjoy it, that'll be the only thing aside from pork and potatoes you're going to be eating for a month." He said and waved her off, heading back to his own shelter just a few hundred yards west of Elsa's own.

"What an odd fellow." Elsa turned on her heel and marched back into her own section of Hell on Earth. The small ramp leading down into the trench was just an old door that the engineer's had _borrowed_ from the nearby village, their explanation being _'It's not as though they're using it anymore'_. The wooden lined dirt walls rose up about two heads higher than Elsa's own, of course If a soldier were to need to see over the wall they'd simply have to step up onto an old soapbox, again borrowed from the village, which allowed even the smallest of troopers to peek their heads over the walls. She rounded the corner and headed back to the armory that she had left her gear in before she wrote her letter. Sitting on a crate inside of a small makeshift shed inside of the trench was her utility gear, consisting of the standard infantry gear, webbing, a rucksack filled with rations, a small medical kit, a folding entrenching tool that hung off the back with relative security, several ammunition pouches already attached to the lining containing both ammunition for her Gewehr M98 rifle and her Mauser C96 pistol that sat neatly in a holster at her waist at all times, both a symbol of her status, and her rank as an officer the pistol was engraved with fine details along the barrel and the receiver of the gun along with an ever-so slightly blue tint to the metal of the receiver. The pistol had been a gift from her father when he learned that she had been selected among the other 500,000 women, a gift that Elsa wished she would never have to use, but her intuition knew that that hope was far from helpful.

She pulled a canteen from her rucksack and took a swig of water, and then splashed herself in the face to wake herself up once again. The coffee in the trenches was shit, there was no nice way of putting it. It tasted watered down and diluted to the point where it was hardly recognizable as coffee and completely ineffective at waking up the soldiers, but that was the price they payed so every single man could even have coffee.

With France defeated the Empire was experiencing an unfamiliar abundance of both food for the people and the soldiers. Oil, coal, wood, and many other resources' quantities had skyrocketed since the surrender, but most people, Elsa included knew that the stores would not last. With some-odd 3 million men and half a million women in service at the time the food requirements were higher than they'd ever been. Of course as a person of high birth Elsa was highly unfamiliar with eating bad food, but she felt as if she had adapted well. The platinum blonde woman shook the thoughts from her head and replaced the canteen on her hip. She slung her rifle over her shoulder and hung her steel helmet from the webbing on her back when she heard a sound. A far off, distant sound from seemingly miles away. It was reminescent of thunder cracking a world away. There was a loud boom, followed by a crack that seemed to envelop itself, and then a scream.

 _"Artillery!"_

Just after the scream a sudden explosion in the middle of the field erupted shooting mud and dirt hundreds of feet into the air and Elsa stood starstruck as dozens of explosions went off in a wide arc in front of her, then a second wave closer and Elsa knew she had to spring into action, lest she be caught out with her proverbial pants down. The platinum blonde sprinted off from the armory to her position just behind a machine gun bunker which had already begun to open fire, even though smoke shells mixed in with the high explosive shells prevented sight. Elsa took her position and raised her rifle ripping the bolt open Elsa reached into her coat pocket and grabbed a stripper clip notching it on the rifle pushing the bullets into the magazine of her rifle, holding five rounds in total. With a shaky hand and labored breaths Elsa moved the bolt into the closed position and tilted down showing she was ready to fire at anything that came her way. Suddenly a whistling sound came through the air above her, Elsa averted her gaze to the sky where she saw several massive shots flying through the air towards the ground, she shouted into the Concrete pill box. "Get your heads down!" But they could not hear her over the sound of the guns. The first of the shells landed to Elsa's right hand side roughly twenty yards in front of her when another landed even closer to the woman sending her flying back into the wooden wall.

Elsa let out a cry of shock as her head impacted against the structure. Her ears rang as though a whistle blew into her ear and her vision blurred as her brain attempted to compensate the blow. She forced herself to her feet with her rifle and stumbled towards the bunker using her weapon as a makeshift crutch. Her brain rattled inside of her head as several other explosions rocked her around as she forced herself to her feet and shook her head attempting to regain her composure to no avail as she nearly crawled into the bunker where she saw the two crew members of the heavy machine gun mounted on the inside of the bunker in separate stages of disfigurement, the gunner was missing a piece of his head, blood splattered across the floor and walls his helmet seemed to have crushed his head after receiving a piece of shrapnel to its front plate. The spotter was in equally bad shape, missing an arm and his face disfigured with a piece of metal shrapnel stuck into it from his left eye across the bridge of his nose. As Elsa took in the sights and regained her composure she felt a familiar feeling in the back of her throat as she began to regurgitate her lunch on the floor of the bunker. The scene played out before her made her sick and she fell to her knees spitting out bile from her stomach.

After relieving herself of her stomach acid Elsa returned to her feet and exited the bunker just in time for the trench to fill out with other soldiers, these soldiers carried different weapons than Elsa, they were storm-troops, the patch on their sleeves bearing a skull inside a laurel crown with twin hand grenades on the bottom showed this. These soldiers were the elite, armed to the teeth, each and every one of them armed with a sub-machine gun or a shotgun along with 4 or 5 stick grenades hanging from their utility belt, differing from Elsa, they carried no sacks on their backs nor extra supplies.

Elsa knew why they were here, they were a counter attack party, to storm the British lines while Tommy was distracted trying to take our trench line they would circle around and flank. Elsa hung back just a moment wiping the spit-up from her mouth with her sleeve she watched the storm troopers cry out a piercing war cry that would strike fear into the hearts of even the bravest of men, including Elsa herself who was taken aback by the sheer volume of their cry, with a blow of a whistle they all climbed over the trenches and charged on into no mans land straight through British machine gun fire.

Even though they were the Empires best and bravest, they were still men, and men were easily felled. As the smoke on the other trench line cleared an ear piercing whistle different than the one used by the storm troops but a very similar whistle rang through the air as what seemed like hundreds of enemy soldiers stormed straight ahead at her line. The sound of gunfire erupted around her as the field guns on either side of her line fired at the charging enemy soldiers, the shells flew threw the air leaving a trail through the fog and impacting the ground with massive explosions sending bodies flying into the air in a splash of dirt and blood. Elsa let out a breath she didn't realize she had been holding in.

"Frost! Get your ass in gear!" A voice came from behind her and a strong hand on her shoulder pulled her to the wall of the trench. Elsa was in too much shock to respond.

The man who pulled her over shook the Lieutenant and lightly slapped her on the cheek. "Hey, Frost. Still with us?"

Elsa finally registering his presence nodded in response. "Yeah...I'm here." She said recognizing the man, by his red sideburns and the patch on his jacket which noted him as his squads designated marksman.

"Welcome back, the Captain is dead and as such following the chain of command you are now in charge. So tell us, what are we to do?" The news he brought was startling to the young woman. She'd received the basic training in commanding a unit, but she had no experience at all in the field commanding.

In a state of panic Elsa had a million thoughts running through her head but she knew she had to act fast.

"Set up in defensive positions along the line, fire at will maintaining position as long as possible. If the line is overrun retreat to the next line and defend there. Bayonets fixed." She said in surprising clarity considering her racked state of mind. The Sergeant seemed rather impressed with her ability to give orders especially when she was so obviously stressed to the point of near mental breakdown.

Hans gave her a quick salute. "Yes sir." He said and called the message runners over to relay the orders throughout the line. As they moved into action to spread the word Elsa moved back into the bunker and moved aside one of the bodies still positioned at the machine gun placed inside. She let out a heavy sigh and reached onto the gun and pulled back the charging handle knocking a round from the belt into the chamber of the gun. The platinum blonde looked up towards the charging enemy and let out a breath again. "Jesus Christ Elsa, what have you gotten yourself into..."

She pressed the wooden stock of the heavy machine gun to her shoulder and lined up her sights with a clump of infantry and squeezed the trigger. As soon as she pulled the trigger the gun sprang into action giving a bang and a flash out the front of the water jacketed barrel and recoiled back into her shoulder firing round after round towards the enemy line. desperately trying to make it across no-mans-land. The barren hellscape was only about 50 meters across, but in between the Germans and the Brits not a single tree stood, the only remnants were flaming stumps of trees, the land had formed itself into a series of craters and impact holes reminiscent of what one would see if they were to look up at the moon. The lack of trees made cover nearly impossible, though some men still hid inside of the frozen craters and behind the stumps of particularly large trees. Tommy was getting close now, the whites of their eyes could be seen from where she was and Elsa turned to fire at them yet when she pulled the trigger no rounds fired.

"Fuck!" Elsa exclaimed uncharacteristically and tried cocking the charging handle to expel the jammed cartridge but no matter how hard she pulled she simply was not strong enough to force the gun to fire, and so Elsa abandoned the machine gun pulling her rifle off its sling on her back she exited the bunker and rejoined her men on the front line.

Already in some sections her line had already begun to break. The horrid sound of the British Enfield rifle cracked just to her sides and the war cries of her men engaged in melee combat overwhelmed by the numerically superior British force, and without fail her line was soon overrun as well by the soldiers brandishing their bayonets, clubs, knives, their rifles as bats, and even a few sabers brandished by officers and perhaps former cavalry men as they beat and sliced through her line. Blood splattered the walls of the trench as what seemed like hundreds of soldiers flooded the trenches and Elsa was left stuck between two quickly encroaching groups of soldiers on either side of her, this was when Elsa reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her silver whistle and tweeted it loud enough to be heard over the sound of war.

"Retreat!" she cried out and used the soap box as leverage to vault herself out of the trench towards the rearward line. She slung her rifle once again over her back and drew her pistol for the first time knocking back the safety as she drew it she began firing the broom-handle pistol into the trenches hopefully pushing back the Brits for just a little longer when out of the corner of her eye she spotted an arm swinging towards her head. On pure reflexes alone Elsa ducked out of the way just in time to dodge a club being swung at her head. The man who had swung at her threw a second punch at her which connected with her rib-cage knocking the woman to the ground. Elsa stared up at her assailant unable to breathe as her back hit the ground. She felt the pressure in her head drop as she saw the swing coming straight down onto her head, it felt as though the world ran in slow motion as the weapon came closer and closer until it struck her directly in the head and then, everything was black.

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 _ _...To Be Continued__

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 **AN: Hey all! Thanks for reading the first chapter of _Eisernes Kreuz_ (working title...maybe will stay) I hope you enjoyed it. As of right now this story is still being developed and I am in the process of story boarding as of right now. Hopefully soon I'll know if there's enough interest here to keep it going. **

**Sorry to those of you looking forward to the Elsanna, no such luck in this chapter. You won't have to wait too long. I promise :)**

 **Let me know what you think of this chapter, I love the feedback. If you don't like it tell me why, don't just flame pls~ Thanks.**

 **Again hope ya enjoyed. Read/Review- Chizu**

 **Update: Wow I'm really sorry to disappoint anyone but this is just a rewrite of the first chapter using better spelling and spacing. Thanks for reading again! Hope to post the 2nd chapter soon!**


	3. The Rain

**AN:** **Hey all! It's been a while hasn't it? I guess I'd just like to say I'm sorry. I had every intention of updating this weekly, but as they say 'Life happens while you're busy making other plans.' I'm not making a complete return just yet...but I hope to at least write a bit more over the next months. Thanks. -Chizu**

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 _Eisernes Kruez_

 _Chapter 2: Der Regen_

The sky was dark with clouds when Elsa awoke, her eyes slowly creaking open like a door that had been sealed for centuries, she felt feeling return to her hands, which stung with bruises and her body ached like when one slept in a foreign bed, which- she soon realized - she most definitely had. She felt a sensation on her face, cool droplets of rain splashed across her body, soaking her clothes. She was awake now, but she could not move, and then in an instant a sharp pain jolted into her head like she had been bashed in the face, and then she finally remembered that she had. The memories of what had previously transpired flooded into her mind. The images made her sick to her stomach and most likely would've made her regurgitate if she weren't so starving.

The woman pushed herself up into a seated position and looked out in front of her and she let out a sharp gasp as she realized just where she was, dozens upon dozens of dead men, British and German, surrounded her, some looked like they had died peacefully, others were missing limbs and pieces of their flesh. Elsa's breathing shifted to laboured breaths and she forced herself back against the dirt wall behind her and stared in bewilderment at the sea of corpses she had been lying in. Her body begin to shake with fear and panic as she looked down and saw her hands coated in a thick matted layer of blood as were her legs and her jacket. _Just how long had she been here._

Her blood went cold. "Is this hell..." She thought aloud, of course there was ne'er a soul around to hear her, save for the crows that surrounded the trench filled with bodies. Elsa knew she had to get out of here, and fast. She scanned the area nearby for anything that would be useful and spotted her rifle just a few feet away. She grabbed the Gewehr 98 rifle and pushed the butt down into the ground using it to force herself to her feet. She almost fell over but was able to steady herself with the weapon. "Alright Elsa...one foot in front of the other..." She mumbled taking a step forward, using the gun as a makeshift crutch she forced herself to wade through the bodies. She stared straight ahead, for if she looked down, she feared she would lose herself and drown in the sea of men. Soon she finally broke free of the bodies and fell to her knees in exhaustion. She could not move another step and she knew it. Her energy was completely drained, replaced by fear. The fear that she would die here, alone, surrounded by the bodies of friend and foe. There was only one thing she could think of to do.

"The salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord; he is their stronghold in time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them; he delivers them from the wicked and saves them, because they take refuge in him. In your name we pray..." She recited the scriptures of Luther. In her heart, she did not truly know if reciting the words helped her, but in her current situation they brought comfort to her weak soul. Elsa fell back against the wall of the trench again, her heart pounded in her chest but she continued to pray and as if God had heard her words a noise came from above. Rustling, chatter, in her native language.

Granted a second wind, Elsa forced herself to her feet once again and stumbled through the trench network in search of the voice. The voices got louder, and Elsa propelled herself forward as fast as she could. She rounded a corner and there stood a familiar man, though she had only met him once, she wouldn't forget the shaggy man.

Kristoff looked up hearing the buttplate of Elsa's rifle hit the wood planks that lined the bottom of the trench and his eyes went wide with surprise. "Liutenant is that you?" He asked jogging over to her. He grabbed hold of her shoulders holding her up. "Christ you look like hell." He said throwing her arm over his shoulder helping her walk along supporting her as they walked. Elsa let out a sigh of relief as the pair walked back towards the camp. Kristoff helped her out of the trench, lifting her up by her sides and setting her down on the topside.

The woman looked down at him, her head swimming, she felt her conscious weining but she knew she needed to get to the medical tent. She pushed herself to her feet once again and hobbled towards the rear camp. Kristoff hopped out of the trench and repositioned himself to help the pale officer. "How do you feel?" He asked earning a low chuckle from Elsa.

"The same way I look." She responded, her voice raspy from dehydration.

"Ah yes, that would make sense." He laughed aloud

Soon a small group of men ran up to the pair with a gurney and Kristoff helped her onto the apparatus which they promptly transported to the medical tent, Elsa, in the meantime, closed her eyes for a little rest.

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... _To Be continued._


End file.
